View full sizeOregon State PoliceCrews work to repair damage to power lines along U.S. 26 near Welches. High winds and rain knocked out power at busy intersections, government buildings and thousands of homes in and around Portland, Salem and Vancouver Wednesday afternoon, area power utilities said.

At the height of the bad weather, with winds gusting at more than 60 miles per hour and heavy rains battering the length of the Willamette Valley, Portland General Electric and Pacific Power reported that nearly 45,000 people were without power across Oregon and the Portland metro area.

Pacific Power repair crews worked throughout the afternoon and early evening to fix power lines and restore electricity to more than 37,500 of their customers, mostly in Albany, Corvallis and
Philomath, said utility spokesman Tom Gauntt. Most had their power restored within an hour.

Meanwhile, PGE crews were rushing from one downed tree
to the next, repairing lines and rerouting power as fast as they could.

"We're seeing new outages come in as quickly as we can restore power," PGE spokeswoman Elaina Medina said.

At one point, earlier in the afternoon, more than 8,000 Portland General Electric
customers were without power in cities from Portland to
West Linn, Corbett to Lake Oswego, according to Medina.

By 5 p.m., all but 4,000 PGE customers had their power restored, although the utility reported that the number of customers suffering outages fluctuated between 3,000 to 8,000 all afternoon.

Medina asked anyone without power to call PGE's outages and emergency lines at 503-464-7777.

About 5:45 p.m., ODOT reported a tree had fallen across U.S. 26 at
Brightwood, near Welches, and closed the highway in both directions. The
tree also downed a string of power poles when it fell.

ODOT
crews and PGE were on the scene of the downed tree and officials were
telling drivers to take alternate routes.

In Clackamas County, about 4,700 customers remained without power at 5:45
p.m. after more than 15 outages were reported across the county.

More
than 1,700 people were reported without power in Welches alone, Medina
said.

Another concentration was in the Stafford area, where an estimated
2,500 customers were blacked out.

A caller in Clackamas County reported that the lights were off at the Milwaukie City Hall and that traffic signals were blank at the intersection where Oregon 224 crosses Southeast Harrison Street and along several blocks of McLoughlin Boulevard.

In West Linn, police and ODOT detoured traffic and issued warnings after several trees fell into Oregon 43 at Mapleton Drive and Kenthorpe Way. Traffic was detoured around the fallen trees for several blocks.

Sgt. Neil Hennelly said traffic signals were out all along the highway.

"Remember, if a traffic signal is not working, treat it as a four-way stop," Hennelly said.

Meanwhile, a large tree fell across Lake Oswego's South Shore Boulevard, a main artery through the Bryant and Palisades neighborhoods. Crews with chainsaws were working to clear the debris.

A further 4,600 customers in Washington
County were waiting for power to be
restored.